The establishment of the mammalian neocortex is often explained phylogenetically by an evolutionary change in the pallial neuronal progenitors of excitatory projection neurons. It remains unclear, however, whether and how the evolutionary change in inhibitory interneurons, which originate outside the neocortex, has been involved in the establishment of the neocortex. ...

Neuron cells uptake of biodegradable and synthetic polymeric microcapsules functionalized with aggregates of gold nanoparticles incorporated into their shells is demonstrated in situ. In addition to traditionally used optical microscopy, electron microscopy is used both for higher-resolution imaging and for confirming the uptake by focused ion beam cross-sectioning of specific ...

BACKGROUND: Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is one of the most aggressive malignancies implying a very poor prognosis for patients even under therapy. Since it is known that SCLC cells exhibit neurone-like characteristics, we investigated whether a neuronal induction medium (NID) consisting of indomethacin (200μM), 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IBMX, 500μM) and insulin ...

The organization of neural progenitors in the developing mammalian neuroepithelium is marked by cadherin-based adherens junctions. Whereas RhoA, a founding member of the small Rho GTPase family, has been shown to play important roles in epithelial adherens junctions, its physiological roles in neural development remain uncertain due to the lack ...

To date, joint use of alcohol (EtOH) and methamphetamine (MA) represents a specific combination of polydrug abuse. Repeated administrations of EtOH, MA, and combined EtOH and MA were assessed for their effects on brain cell toxicity, cell mitosis and anxiety/depression-like behavior. We found that repeated co-administrations of EtOH and MA ...

The subgranular zone (SGZ) in the dentate gyrus contains radial astrocytes, known as Type-1 or Type-B cells, which generate neuroblasts (Type-2 cells or Type-D cells) that give rise to granular neurons. Stress increases glucocorticoid levels that target SGZ and modify the proliferation and apoptosis of hippocampal cells. Yet, it is ...

Nestin, a class VI intermediate filament protein, was originally described as a neuronal stem cell marker during central nervous system development. Nestin is expressed in gliomas, and its expression levels are higher in gliomas with high WHO histopathological classification grades than in those with low grades. In the present study, ...

PTK7 is a tyrosine kinase receptor implicated in planar cell polarity, a process with multiple implications at the cellular and organism levels. Loss of function of PTK7 leads to profound morphogenetic defects in the mouse, such as neural tube defects, misorientation of stereocilia in the inner ear, and impaired polarized ...

For each environment a rodent has explored, its hippocampus contains a map consisting of a unique subset of neurons, called place cells, that have spatially tuned spiking there, with the remaining neurons being essentially silent. Using whole-cell recording in freely moving rats exploring a novel maze, we observed differences in ...

Hippocampal pyramidal cells can be divided into place cells, which fire action potentials when an animal is in specific locations, and silent cells, which are not spatially selective. In this issue of Neuron, Epsztein et al. find intracellular differences between place and silent cells by using whole-cell recordings in freely moving ...

TGFβ/BMP signaling regulates the fate of multipotential cranial neural crest (CNC) cells during tooth and jawbone formation as these cells differentiate into odontoblasts and osteoblasts, respectively. The functional significance of SMAD4, the common mediator of TGFβ/BMP signaling, in regulating the fate of CNC cells remains unclear. In this study, we ...

The plasma membrane redox system (PMRS) of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH)-related enzymes plays a key role in the maintenance of cellular energetics. During the aging process, neural cells are particularly sensitive to impaired energy metabolism and oxidative damage, but the involvement of the PMRS in these processes is unknown. Here, ...

To investigate whether hair cell immunophenotypes can be derived from the central nervous system. We established in vitro cell cultures from embryonic day 14.5 fetal rat brain tissue, and analysed changes in the immunohistochemical features of these cell cultures following differentiation. The immature neural progenitors obtained from the fetal mouse ...

A hallmark of mammalian brain evolution is cortical expansion, which reflects an increase in the number of cortical neurons established by the progenitor cell subtypes present and the number of their neurogenic divisions. Recent studies have revealed a new class of radial glia-like (oRG) progenitor cells in the human brain, ...

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We attempted to test whether the differentiated NIH/3T3 fibroblasts could be differentiated into neuronal cells without any epigenetic modification. First, a neurosphere assay was carried out, and we successfully generated neurosphere-like cells by floating cultures of NIH/3T3 fibroblasts in neural stem cell medium. These spheres have the ability to form ...

Neural stem cells (NSCs) have received much attention in cell-transplantation therapy for central nervous disorders such as Parkinson's disease. However, poor engraftment of transplanted cells limits the efficacy of the treatments. To overcome this problem, collagen-based hydrogels were designed in this study to provide microenvironments for embedded cells to survive ...

In premature infants, germinal matrix haemorrhage in the brain is a common occurrence. However, cell proliferation and fate determination in the normal human germinal matrix is poorly understood. Human ganglionic eminence samples were collected prospectively from autopsies of premature and term infants with no evidence of pathological process (n = 78; dying ...

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACis) are a promising class of anticancer agents for the treatment of brain tumors. HDACis can increase the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in brain cells. We have previously shown that BDNF reduces the viability of medulloblastoma cells. The aim of the present study was to ...

Amir Alon A Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Newark, NJ 07102, - - 2011

Intercalated (ITC) amygdala neurons are thought to play a critical role in the extinction of conditioned fear. However, several factors hinder progress in studying ITC contributions to extinction. First, although extinction is usually studied in rats and mice, most ITC investigations were performed in guinea pigs or cats. Thus it ...

In this study, we investigated the effects of S-allyl-L-cysteine (SAC), a major sulfur-containing compound present in garlic, on Ki67- and doublecortin (DCX)-positive cells, which were used as a marker for cell proliferation and neuroblast differentiation, respectively, in the mouse dentate gyrus. SAC (300 mg/kg) was intraperitoneally administered to 8-week-old mice ...

The transforming growth factor (TGF)-β inducible early gene (TIEG)-1 is implicated in the control of cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis in some cell types. Since TIEG1 functioning may be associated with TGF-β, a suppressor of myogenesis, TIEG1 is also likely to be involved in myogenesis. Therefore, we investigated the function ...

Studies in vitro have permitted the identification of enteric neural progenitor cells. Now the question arises as to where these progenitor cells are located in vivo. The purpose of this paper is to identify possible candidate cells by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM). We have located three interstitial cellular ...

Microglial cells are the resident macrophages in the central nervous system. These cells of mesodermal/mesenchymal origin migrate into all regions of the central nervous system, disseminate through the brain parenchyma, and acquire a specific ramified morphological phenotype termed "resting microglia." Recent studies indicate that even in the normal brain, microglia ...

Dravet syndrome is caused by mutations of the SCN1A gene that encodes voltage-gated sodium channel alpha-1 subunit. SCN1A-knock-in mouse with a disease-relevant nonsense mutation that we generated well reproduced the disease phenotypes. Both homozygous and heterozygous knock-in mice developed epileptic seizures within the first postnatal month. In heterozygotes, trains of ...

The technique of central nervous system cell implantation can affect the outcome of preclinical or clinical studies. Our goal was to evaluate the impact of various injection parameters that may be of consequence during the delivery of solute-suspended cells. These parameters included (1) the type and concentration of cells used ...

The LIM-domain protein Ajuba localizes at sites of epithelial cell-cell adhesion and has also been implicated in the activation of Aurora-A (Aur-A). Despite the expected importance of Ajuba, Ajuba-deficient mice are viable, which has been attributed to functional redundancy with the related LIM-domain protein LIMD1. To gain insights into the ...

Spinal muscular atrophy is a severe neurogenic disease that is caused by mutations in the human survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene. SMN protein is required for the assembly of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins and a dramatic reduction of the protein leads to cell death. It is currently unknown how the ...

Proper craniofacial development begins during gastrulation and requires the coordinated integration of each germ layer tissue (ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm) and its derivatives in concert with the precise regulation of cell proliferation, migration, and differentiation. Neural crest cells, which are derived from ectoderm, are a migratory progenitor cell population that ...

Cell transplantation has been proposed as a potential approach to the treatment of neurological disorders. One cell population of interest consists of human umbilical cord blood (hUCB) cells, which have previously been shown to be useful for reparative medicine in haematological diseases. However, hUCB cells are also capable of differentiating ...

This study investigated whether methotrexate (MTX) is neurotoxic to neural progenitor cells in the hippocampus of adult mice and whether it affects hippocampus-dependent behaviors. In addition, the cytotoxicity of MTX was elucidated in rat immature and mature hippocampal cultured cells. The number of Ki-67 (proliferating cell marker)- and doublecortin (immature ...

Social life affects brain function at all levels, including gene expression, neurochemical balance, and neural circuits. We have previously shown that in the cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni brightly colored, socially dominant (DOM) males face a trade off between reproductive opportunities and increased predation risk. When compared with camouflaged subordinate (SUB) ...

The regulation of adherens junctions (AJs) is critical for multiple events during CNS development, including the formation and maintenance of the neuroepithelium. We have addressed the role of the small GTPase RhoA in the developing mouse nervous system using tissue-specific conditional gene ablation. We show that, in the spinal cord ...

Primary brain tumors, gliomas, diffusely invade the brain by active cell migration either intraparenchymal, along white matter tracts or along blood vessels. The close relationship of glioma with the vasculature assures a continuous supply of oxygen and nutrients essential for cell growth, and exposes cells to a variety growth factors, ...

Neural crest development involves epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), during which epithelial cells are converted into individual migratory cells. Notably, the same signaling pathways regulate EMT function during both development and tumor metastasis. p53 plays multiple roles in the prevention of tumor development; however, its precise roles during embryogenesis are less clear. ...

Abnormal cell cycle events are increasingly becoming important attributes of neurodegenerative pathology. Pin1 is a crucial target of neurodegeneration in relation to its functions regarding these abnormal cell cycle events in neurons. Pin1 is majorly involved in many aspects of cell cycle regulation and it has also been suggested to ...

The adult brain parenchyma contains a widespread population of progenitors generating different cells of the oligodendrocyte lineage such as NG2+ cells and some mature oligodendrocytes. However, it is still largely unknown how proliferation and lineage decisions of these progenitors are regulated. Here, we first characterized the cell cycle length, proliferative ...

Purpose: Neurons in the adult mammalian central nervous system do not proliferate or renew themselves and consequently strong interest in cell replacement therapies to repair brain and spinal cord damages has emerged in the last decade. ?Methods: An injectable resorbable hydrogel with a controlled nanostructure, specifically designed for neural cell ...

Dynamic fluxes of s-block metals like potassium, sodium, and calcium are of broad importance in cell signaling. In contrast, the concept of mobile transition metals triggered by cell activation remains insufficiently explored, in large part because metals like copper and iron are typically studied as static cellular nutrients and there ...

Purpose: Granulocyte colony stimulating factor (GCSF) is a potent hematopoietic factor that stimulates the growth of neutrophil granulocyte precursors, and also regulates the differentiation and survival of neutrophils by inhibiting apoptosis. Incidentally, GCSF is also known to act as an endogenous ligand for brain cells, counteracting acute neuronal degeneration and ...

A hallmark of neurogenesis in the vertebrate brain is the apical-basal nuclear oscillation in polarized neural progenitor cells. Known as interkinetic nuclear migration (INM), these movements are synchronized with the cell cycle such that nuclei move basally during G1-phase and apically during G2-phase. However, it is unknown how the direction ...

Oligodendrocyte (OL) progenitor cells (OPCs) give rise to the myelinating cells of the central nervous system (CNS), the OL. To examine molecular changes involved in OPC differentiation, a microarray analysis was performed at several time points during OPC maturation. The results revealed significant expression levels of mRNA for reelin, one ...

Mitotic spindle assembly and orientation are tightly regulated to allow the appropriate segregation of genetic material and cell fate determinants during symmetric and asymmetric divisions. Microtubules and many proteins including the dynein/dynactin complex and the large nuclear mitotic apparatus NuMA protein, are fundamental players in these mechanisms. A recent study ...

The neocognitron is a hierarchical multi-layered neural network capable of robust visual pattern recognition. It has been demonstrated that recent versions of the neocognitron exhibit excellent performance for recognizing handwritten digits. When characters are written on a noisy background, however, recognition rate was not always satisfactory. To find out the ...

Cells are endowed with several overlapping peroxide-degrading systems whose relative importance is a matter of debate. In the present study, three different sources of neural cells (rat hippocampal slices, rat C6 glioma or mouse N2a neuroblastoma cells) were used as models to understand the relative contribution of individual peroxide-degrading systems. ...

The sensory processing of odorants is a dynamic process that requires plasticity at multiple levels. In the olfactory bulb (OB), inhibitory interneurons undergo lifelong replacement through a process known as adult neurogenesis. These newly born cells are incorporated in a learning-dependent fashion, a process which has led some to suggest ...

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive form of primary brain tumor with a tendency to invade surrounding healthy brain tissues, rendering tumors of this type largely incurable. Aquaporin-4 (AQP4) is a key molecule involved in maintaining water and ion homeostasis in the central nervous system and has been recently reported to ...